


Galaxy Map

by le_singe_est_sur_la_branche



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, F/M, Happy Ending, Recovery, spoilers for end game, totally ignoring the end game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-30 04:12:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3922429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/le_singe_est_sur_la_branche/pseuds/le_singe_est_sur_la_branche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard has always been in love with the stars. Garrus has always kind of been in love with that fact about her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Galaxy Map

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if there are any grammar mistakes. And if you don't like my personal Shepard.

It starts off with a comment.

Well, not really. Really, it starts long before this moment. It starts with a Shepard that Garrus barely remembers. It starts with a woman who is only Spectre, human, red fringe.

It starts off with discovering Reagan staring at the galaxy map in the CIC, lost in the stars, fingers moving idly through each planet, each sun, each system like a child would a new picture book. At first he thinks that this a new thing for her, not many human ships have one, and she's only just gotten command of the Normandy. This, of course, is wrong.

When Reagan wants to think, wants to drift off, she stares at the stars. The stars on the map, the chart she has hung above her bed, the pictures she gathered in a file on her computer, the view out of windows of the pilot's area.

It starts there, really, watching this warrior, this soldier, this human gaze at the stars like she wants to be there, far away, far off, too far away from the Normandy, the Alliance, the Spectres, the crew. She always smiles at him when he catches her, a small smile, like she's afraid he'll criticize her for day dreaming when Saren's still out there.

The only time he ever saw her so peaceful is with her fingers idly and patiently moving through the stars, memorizing each color, each solar spot, each moon.

It starts there, but it does not end there. Reagan's thing for stars spreads throughout the group, common knowledge at this point. No one teases, no one disapproves. Sometimes, he'll find her looking at a star and he'll tell her a random fact he knows about space. She always look so pleased, so happy to know.

Tali, Garrus and Liara got in together on a star patterned sweater for the human holiday Christmas. It's Liara's idea, and at first he's glad they get her something because she gets them something, and then he's glad they did it just because she looks so touched. Humans are so visual with their emotions, but he's never actually seen joy like that on her face. He will always be glad that he's the reason it's put there.

She dies, and Garrus's only consoling thought in the dark of night is that she got the see the stars from where she died. At least, that's what he wishes vehemently he could believe.

She comes back, and Garrus suddenly believes in everything. Because she is his everything, if only he could've figured this out before she died. She smiles like the sun of Palaven, hot and powerful, and he's glad he's got his armor on because he doesn't know if his scales and natural armor could protect him from the radiation of her smile.

When he's laying in her bed, months later, the end hours away, her naked sweaty body beside him, chest slowing as she drifts off in thought, he still believes in everything, but he wishes he could believe in their success.

"Tell me everything." She sighs, eyes on the stars, so he tucks his head in her neck, despite the awkward angle, and tells her everything he knows about the stars, the suns, the planets, about space.

Later, when everything is lost, raging fires still burning his eyes, blue blood soaked in to his skin from lost comrades, and the red of Reagan's hair the only thing he wishes for, later when the sun is florescent lights of the Normandy, and there is a burning ache in his chest because she is in his arms once again but his home, his old one, is still burning.

"Tell me about the stars." He says, his voice soft and if another Turian were here, he'd be embarrassed because he sounds so desperate. But it's just Reagan, and there is an ache in the space between them, and she breathes out like a tidal wave, chest a heaving force of life, and he wants to cling to that forever. She tells him about the stars, about the little orphan who slept under a window dreaming about being far far away from everything.

So it starts long ago, it seems like ages but it's barely five years. It starts there, but does not end there. Garrus hopes it never ends. He hopes he gets to spend everyday watching the stars with her, he with his scars, her with hers. They've been broken so badly, but they're piecing themselves together like two puzzles half lost and able to fit together still.

But this, this moment, started off with an off-handed comment about glow in the dark stars from Earth. And it carries on through now because Garrus has done one better, he has managed to get stickers, exactly like the systems around them, and he has covered the walls and ceiling Reagan's hospital room with the universe. When she comes back from physical therapy, always so angry and worn out, she looks up at her universe, because she deserves it, and is stunned by the star chart on her ceiling.

"G-Garrus?" She asks, voice shaky, tears hovering on the edge of her lashes. He doesn't say anything, pushes her in to middle of the room, turning the lights off so the stars twinkle and the planets glow and the moons shimmer. There is a light all her own in her eyes, and she crying, laughing, looking happier than he's seen her in years, pointing at her favorites, naming ones he never knew had names, grinning to show her white teeth and her happiness.

He doesn't realize something is wrong right away, but he picks up on quickly. Planets go missing, suns are found in the trash, harsh gashes along the wall in on place where she tore down an entire system. It takes him moments to realize that they are gone, because of the Reapers, and it takes him less than that to realize that it's survivor's guilt that clings to her insides and makes her guilty to look at her universe.

He makes a new star chart, using EDI to randomize the places, then he redid the entire map, till it didn't look close to the current universe. This time when Reagan came back from her physical therapy, there was only confusion, and a bit of guilt, on her face.

"Garrus?" She asks, and he pushes her in to the middle of the room. He points to the star right above her.

"That's Shepard. It's the first star to create life." He crouched beside her wheel chair. "It's getting fairly old, but it's still burning bright, and it's going to live a long, healthy life of a star, with lots of life sprouting on it's planets." He described of the reddish star. She still looked confused, but the guilt was replaced by amusement.

"Is that right?" She murmured.

"Yes. Now it's your turn. We're going to make our own Universe." He told her. She smiled, that soft smile she used to send him when he caught her staring at the galaxy map in the SR-1. Then she tips her head back and points to the nearest star to Shepard.

"That's Vakarian. Those planets are inhabited by the local dinosaurs." He rolled his eyes as she laughed softly.

"I'm not a dinosaur, Shepard, for the last time." He groused.

"No, you're right. You're my angel." She mused, smirking when color turned his neck skin purplish. "But those planets have dinosaurs. Big ones with tiny arms and two brains."

"Why two brains?"

"Why not?"

**Author's Note:**

> So.... This is heavily based on my own headcanons and Reagan is my own Shepard. For those wondering, she's an Earth born orphan, with a bad past whose only true solace was the stars up in the night's sky. Also, after end-game, survives and recoups on Thessia with Garrus in an Asari medical facility after nearly a year of surgeries to put her back together. To sum up shortly a long drawn out end game headcanon. Woo.  
> Mass Effect owns the characters.  
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
